Spainless

Disclaimer: Amanda chided me for not posting. I told her I'm not doing anything interesting. She told me to make something up. I don't feel comfortable doing that, so while you can partially blame Amanda for this post, you can't blame her for its content, which, if she had her way, would be more interesting.

I am writing a paper about Seamus Heaney. He is a contemporary Irish Poet and very political. My teacher sees gender issues and sexual symbolism in everything he writes. As I have throughout my education, I won't disagree with an instructor's core beliefs about literature while writing a paper s/he will grade.

I watched a movie called P.S. I Love You, a romantic comedy set partially in Ireland. Great times!

I made spicy vegetarian stir fry and ate it over quinoa.

I bid farewell to my roommate, who's going to Paris for the weekend, and slept on the couch. Because I can do that when I have the apartment to myself.

So, in effect: read a Heaney poem, search for questionable phrasing that vaguely reminds you of a woman (even if the poem is about a potato patch), watch P.S. I Love You, sprinkle some cayenne pepper on your dinner and take a nap on the couch, and it'll be like you're right here with me.

Belgium!

Beautiful weather, lovely company, wonderful places!

The Grand Place in Brussels; we were lucky enough to see it just after its temporary installation was completed - the lights between the buildings are a project called "Convergence." Pretty, huh? Pictures don't do the effect justice.

The big tower in the main square in Bruges, as seen from the vicinity of the windmills, and part of the residential city's "skyline."

Flanders = Windmills! Here I am with beautiful new friend Megan.

Bruges again; one of its beautiful canal streets.

Brussels' military history museum and "Gates to the City," erected to celebrate 50 years of Belgian independence, early in the 20th century.

Belgian waffles! And photographic evidence of the versatility of French braids - two days, two hairstyles, one shower. :)

Our trip to Belgium was beautiful, relaxing, and passed without our seeing so much as a spot of rain - virtually unheard of in infamously overcast Brussels, especially. I achieved all of my goals for this trip: buy/eat chocolate, eat waffles, stroll through Bruges, order beer from a menu. I was also put at ease about the language barrier in European cities, which is really less like a barrier and more like a momentary and very small obstacle. Basically, someone greets you in French or Dutch; you express your lack of understanding in English; they patiently repeat themselves in English which is usually as good or better than yours. In Belgium most people speak not only English, but also their country's official languages of French and Dutch, with many speaking German as well. They make my struggle with a little bit of a second language seem laughable.

I love Belgians. There were dogs everywhere - especially in Bruges, where very contemporary department stores permitted dogs (on a leash) in any store. In Brussels we saw packs of off leash dogs following men who seemed homeless, carrying nothing but their heavy coats over their arms and a sack of dog food. Dogs swam in the public fountain at the park and trotted unattended up and down the sidewalks.

Bruges was particularly beautiful, quiet and sleepy, and our hostel experience there was excellent. Our rooms were very clean but also charming, the building was old but nicely maintained, with a bar on the first floor selling beer at a fraction of its cost in Ireland. There was a pretty good breakfast by the hostel standard, and we met some friendly Australians and even a Canadian. We tuckered ourselves out walking the city during the day and stayed in at night, none of us being the night life seekers of some of the girls in our larger group.

Brussels was a little more intense, and after a failed attempt to tour the city entirely on foot we opted for a hop-on / hop-off bus tour, which basically allowed us transportation from one sight toe the next with the flexibility to stay at one stop for as many half hour increments as we wished. It was sunny, but not especially warm, while we walked past thousand year old buildings and the perfect reflection of the sky in shallow park fountains. We lived entirely off of waffles, chocolate, and the occasional sandwich from a stand. The flight home was long, and we came in too late for any of the buses, so we had hired a taxi in advance. Split four ways the cost wasn't too enormous, but it was still outside of our budgets. With that in mind, I was glad that the entire trip was perfectly luxurious - taxi driver waiting with a sign by our terminal, car parked as close to the door as possible with two tires on the curb, a quick and direct journey back to Cork, deposited at our doorstep in Leeside.

It's always good to hear news from home, and everything I have been told has been pleasant. Amanda and I spent a few minutes on the phone trying to hear one another, she at a field trial in rural Kansas, me in my apartment in southern Ireland. Even though we only managed to exchange a few words, I still marveled at the capabilities of modern technology.

Yesterday was approximately my two month mark; only 60 days of European exploration remaining. In a week and a half I will see Kim, Rich, and Aunt Terry and Lee in Germany. I am so excited. I'm sure I'm going to get emotional when we see one another and embarass myself. In an effort to fit into the fashion world of Ireland, I've also purchased some brown suede boots that hit just below the knee and intend to wear them with opaque panty hose and dresses. I experimented with this in Belgium and liked the results.

Visit to Wildlife Park, and Pending Departure for Brussels

I prepare to set foot on International soil for only the second time in my life; layover at Heathrow notwithstanding

The internet in my apartment has set a new record for low connectivity. Oh dial-up, even you are a fond and distant memory relative to the internet access now at my disposal. It hasn't bothered me too much, really. I have been reading and writing diligently, taking solitary walks, and over the weekend spent almost four hours trying to perfect coconut macaroon pancakes with Hailey. (We failed, but it's the effort, I believe, that counts.)

I will spend only seven of the next 21 days in Ireland, and then it will be November, and I will have just a month left to spend in this amazing place. Figure in just a few of the trips I'm still determined to plan - Italy, Scotland, Austria - and time, I expect, will insist on flying.

I've been feeding a pregnant cat in the parking garage. She won't let me pet her but she looks out for me in the early evenings and runs to me, staying just out of reach, as soon as I acknowledge her. I feel terrible and awkward when I run into her empty handed at other times during the day, but she is leaving a little bit of the food I give her every time, so I think she's getting enough to eat. Stray animals are almost indistinguishable from pets here. Somehow they all manage to stay at a healthy weight. I think the only reason she's looking a little ragged is because she's eating for several. My friends are threatening to capture the kittens and smuggle them into their apartments when they arrive. I am hoping we can at least handle them enough to make them tame and find them homes before we go.

The weather persists in producing a sunny day for every few cloudy ones. And really, considering where we are, any break in the rain should please us. I find myself responding strangely to consecutive overcast days; my mood plummets, my feet drag. I think it is the contrast to the consistent sun of home, a place where a rain cloud is welcomed like a hero. Of course, that doesn't necessarily hold true these days, changing weather patterns being what they are. Has Kansas drained out and dried up again yet? I keep forgetting to ask when I call.

I have strange dreams: in some I'm back in Kansas, in many I have unexpected visitors here in Cork but have lost my keys and cannot manage to let them into my apartment, and in one I was volunteering at an organic farm in Spain and living in a commune. (This exists! Hailey told me about it.) It seems that the International student advisor's prediction will come true; I will be homesick for most of my stay, only to go back to the United States and experience the entire process of loss and adjustment again. To make it easier, though, I will be celebrating Christmas with all my favorite people and - if I have anything to say about it - won't let my dog out of my sight for at least 72 hours. Unless he wants to be out of my sight. I understand if he and Amanda have forged an unbreakable bond during this period of separation.

Horseback riding lessons might be impossible. I'd hoped to take the bus to the ferry and the ferry to Hop Island to take dressage lessons at the facility there, but after speaking to the management learned they don't have availability for Monday or Tuesday lessons, and, at least for the next three weeks, those are the only days I won't be on a bus to or from the airport or in another country. Hopefully I can make this work in November, but with the aforementioned trip plans in the forge, I can't be certain. I am feeling horse withdrawal pangs, but I must also admit that freedom from the responsibility and worry is welcome. Anyone want a very good deal on 1.5 tobiano mares?

I learn my sister is beginning her own adventure, and I hope hers has all the fun and none of the anxiety of mine.

Currently welcoming suggestions for sights to be seen in/around: Brussels and/or Bruges, Belgium; Madrid, Spain; Frankfurt and/or Bonn, Germany.

Wine & Cheese Event in Leeside 7

Pretty food, pretty clothes.

Our guests!


Our wine and chocolate! (I forgot the flash...)


Our food!

Anna and I hosted our ten closest visiting student friends for a culinary celebration, dressy attire highly recommended. (My own adherence to this recommendation, sadly, is undocumented - it was a very cute dress, though.)

Pictured: unfamiliar but delicious European candy bars in bite-size pieces; apples and pears paired with gorgonzola and blue cheeses; baked brie with raspberry preserves served with crackers; bruschetta (guess who?). Late arrivals included spinach quiche and samples of two unidentified cheese wedges (buyers lost their receipt) and one wedge of gouda.

It was the first time we had all been together since celebrating Katie's birthday more than a week before, so it was a good time. We all enjoyed putting together our respective dishes, ingredients mostly purchased at the English market, where the cheese vendors are generous with free samples to help buyers settle on something they like. Megan and I collaborated on the bruschetta, made this time with Chevre, the French variant of the Italian goat cheese I typically buy, and it was a very good and less expensive substitute.

The gathering marked one of the last times we will all be in Ireland simultaneously. Next Wednesday Megan, Hailey, Emily Kate and I leave for Belgium. We are spending one day in Brussells, two in the beautiful Bruges, and then returning for another night in Brussells before flying back to Ireland Sunday. I'll attend my two days of class, and then leave again Wednesday for my solo adventure in southern Spain. Again, I'll get back Sunday, there's no class Monday (National holiday!), I'll go to class Tuesday, then Wednesday leave for Germany! I am very excited to see Aunt Terry and potentially cousin Kim, and I'll have good company in Megan and Anna on the trip there and back.

Time has passed slowly over the past two weeks. I'm unaccustomed to this amount of spare time, after spending the last two years working multiple jobs, taking more classes than necessary, and participating in horse judging. While the lull is nice, it also gives me a little too much time and space for melancholia, a state in which I try very hard not to indulge myself. What I'm learning on this adventure is that I am essentially at home at, well, home. Though I feel I've adjusted well to the new routines, appreciate all the city life has to offer, and am passionately in love with the ambience and beauty of this country, I will be happy to be back in Kansas come December.

Week 1

Rachel [finally] attends "regular" classes.

After the end of the early start class, there was a one week break for English majors; literally, no regular classes were held. We had a session on Wednesday for visiting students in literature to learn more about finalizing our enrollment, and that was it. Which meant, naturally, that Monday classes were the stuff of typical first days: Here is a syllabus. I'll read it out loud to you. Now you can go.

I have never had a literature class taught in a lecture format before. I have had profs who lectured the entire class period even though they told us we would be discussing, but none of us liked them and we tried not to have class with them in any future semester. Now, I'm expected to be silent and absorb every word of a fifty-minute lecture when I'm accustomed to a little classroom chemistry interrupting the monotone of notes read aloud from an outline.

This basic difference aside, I found the material interesting. My classes are as follows: 18th Century Literature (Robinson Crusoe; The Female Quixote), Contemporary Irish Writing (Not sure yet, but so far just poetry), Traditional Irish Music, and Irish History for Visiting Students. Not a heavy load, by any means, but my month-long early start class will transfer back as two separate classes, leaving me with the equivalent of a 15 hour semester. I have my two literature classes Mondays and Tuesdays, and the music class and history class on Monday evening and Tuesday evening, respectively.

What have I done with my free time while patiently waiting classes to begin making demands upon me? Baked (soda bread and banana muffins), wandered (found a local coffeemaker, cozy coffee shops, more hole-in-the-wall pubs), read (found a great used book store AND got a library card), read (checked out the maximum six books from the library and am already on my second set of six), read (what can I say? I have all this time and when it's windy AND rainy I have to stay inside), read more (okay, so there are probably things unique to Ireland I could be doing. I can read books the rest of my life. I'm only here once. I'll work on it).

Those critical of my activities in the past two weeks will be pleased to know the Cork Folk Music Festival is this weekend, so I plan to get out and experience that, in part because I'm required to by my music class. My music class is incredibly low key. We show up and learn about how there is no sheet music in traditional music, and no distinct "songwriters," only set tunes that are "dressed up" by the individual performers. Randomly she will brandish an instrument to demonstrate (the Irish Flute and Irish Pipes so far; who knows what else she has in her arsenal). On my agenda for today: errand running to the four-corners of Cork, figuring out the Irish post office once and for all. Tomorrow: locate and figure out the stable the equestrian club uses for lessons and figure out whether I need my own equipment to ride there, and read Robinson Crusoe, also, at some point.

My next post will be a comparison of the attributes of European and American candy bars. We'd heard there was a distinct difference in quality, but is it true...?

The Fine Art of Feeding Oneself

Or, Rachel loves the English Market, "Cork's Food Emporium"

Here is the English Market!
"The English Market has entrances on Princes Street, Patrick Street and the Grand Parade. It is a covered market for fish, fruit, meat and vegetable. The origins of the market can be traced back to James 1st in 1610, but the present building dates from 1786. In 1980 it was destroyed by fire and was refurbished by Cork Corporation to an award-winning design by the Cork city architect T. F. MacNamara"

It attracts a diverse group of shoppers.

What can you buy here? You can buy olives!

You can buy imported oriental food! (Though I haven't yet.)

You can buy meat! (Though I don't...)

You can buy produce! (I do!)

And virtually anything else...it's a big place.

It's also very pretty.

And you don't necessarily leave the way you came...

One of my primary adjustments has been to the task of shopping and cooking in a surprisingly different shopping and cooking climate. I have mentioned my difficulties coordinating the supplies for the family corn chowder recipe during my first few days here. I like to think I've come some distance since then...with, admittedly, a long way still to go. But places like the English Market make it a little more fun.

I have long preached without practicing the importance of purchasing whole, local foods, avoiding excessive packaging, etc. Living here in Cork has made it easy to finally try to adhere to these principles, even in the case of those who are less conscientious than I am about their environmental impact, or giving their money to corporations.

For example, in Cork and, as far as I know, the rest of Ireland, you are charged for a plastic bag at a store. The hope being that you will reuse the bag you're about to buy, or better yet, have brought along with you a reusable receptacle for your purchases. Cloth and canvas bags are available almost everywhere you turn, and I'm finding they make useful souvenirs. Also, Tesco, the large grocery chain reminiscent of Dillon's, while a stark contrast to the charm and local flavor of the English Market, sells produce, milk and eggs primarily produced in Ireland.

Still, typically I set out to the English Market first, buying what I can there, filling in the holes in my shopping list with a trip to Tesco. I carry my backpack and fill it up, compartment by compartment, as I go. Not only does this save my arms the strain of carrying heavy bags the considerable distance back to my apartment, but it keeps my hands free so I don't have to juggle items from the previous stop while trying to collect and pay for items at the next one. This issue was my primary shopping obstacle when I was first accustoming myself to the routine of buying from small specialty stores instead of all in one place.

Price comparison is also an art at which I'm developing some skill. For example: at Tesco, you pay 35 euro per kilogram of goat cheese. At the cheese stall at the back of the English Market (as opposed to the one right at the Grand Parade entrance) you pay 23 per kilogram, but at the fine foods store off of Oliver Plunkett street, you pay only 18. Also, the fine foods store is all Italian, barely big enough to turn around in, and the Italian staff take your money and thank you with charming Italian accents. (Mom, I can now vouch for the authenticity of your own Italian voice.)

I live primarily off of whatever produce is cheapest (diced fruit with natural yogurt makes equals fruit salad for lunch; diced vegetables sauteed with garlic stuffs tortillas or is tasty over rice) with occasional splurges on seasonings for cooking experiments, which we all know I find hard to resist. I then tend to force my friends to have dinner with me instead of saving the leftovers, so the cost efficiency is completely in question, but I have fun and so do they - or at least, so they say! So far I have successfully created two separate potato curries, and with the availability and low cost of oriental seasonings, hope to do more while I have this kind of access. Next up is quinoa - the miracle grain! - in a supposedly fool-proof pairing with beans and cayenne pepper.

In unrelated news, I have a library card, class only on Mondays and Tuesdays, and flights booked to Belgium, Germany, and Spain, with a Scotland trip in the works. Despite all this, it was a slow pre-class week spent milling around Cork, and I am looking forward to a busy first day of class tomorrow, with - I hope - some time in between to check out the exercise facilities at the university's gym. I had some discipline for physical fitness that I left in the United States, but I'm hoping to muster some up soon, to counterbalance the sad fact of my limited self control and the availability of fresh bread at the English Market for 2 euro per loaf.

Coole Park; Aran Islands; Galway; Cliffs of Moher

Rachel faces writing about places that famous people have already described

We left as a class a week ago today for the Aran Islands, with a four-hour stop at Coole Park, the retreat of Lady Gregory, famous Irish writer, whose guests included Synge, Yeats, Wilde, and nearly every other writer of the period. We then got to the ferry, took it to Innis Meain, and after spending two nights there got back to the mainland, into Galway, and saw the city for a day before taking a bus tour of the Cliffs of Moher. Friday and Saturday nightlife seen in Galway, then back to Cork for the first week of class.

The lead-in is a tipoff: I don't really know what to say about these places that hasn't already been said, much more beautifully and articulately, by dozens of famous writers throughout history. So, just to put everything on the table, I'll borrow their words to start.

Coole Park

'Under my window ledge the waters race,

Otters below and moor-hens on the top,

Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face,

Then darkening through 'dark' Raftery's 'cellar' drop,

Run underground, rise in a rocky place

In Coole demesne, and there to finish up

Spread to a lake and drop into a hole.

What's water but the generated soul?'
W.B. Yeats 'Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931'

Innis Meain

"...the sun is shining with a luminous warmth that makes the whole island glisten with the splendor of a gem, and fills the sea and sky with a radiance of blue light. I have come out to lie on the rocks where I have the black edge of the north island in front of me, Glaway Bay, too blue almost to look at, on my right, the Atlantic on my left, a perpendicular cliff under my ankles, and over me innumerable gulls that chase each other ina white cirrus of wings."

J.M. Synge, The Aran Islands

The Cliffs of Moher

"Look! The Cliffs of Insanity!"

The Princess Bride (probably misquoted; I couldn't find a transcript :) But they're one and the same!)

So, I saw these things, and I couldn't stay in any of these places long enough, and if I was told I could hike around Ireland for the rest of my life without starving to death or being maimed by wolves (foxes, I think, are actually the largest predator here) I would totally do it. Well, I would do it if I could still visit home regularly. Okay, maybe I wouldn't commit the rest of my life to exploring Ireland on any realistic condition, but I know that all I'm seeing now will probably become my most cherished memories, and I'm very grateful.



Coole Park is unequal parts manicured gardens and lawns and wooded trails through a forest so dense it would be difficult to stray from the dirt paths, paths formed and maintained by footsteps alone for hundred of years. Lady Gregory and her contemporaries are world famous as those who revived the Irish literary tradition and made it internationally known, and they communed in this space and composed much of their work in the shade of these trees, in the hush of this solitude. I thought about that when I walked alone down the lake path and almost stumbled into the water. There was a suddeness to the surroundings, a strange silent immediacy. Across the lake, cattle grazed unaware by the ruins of a stone fort. I looked over my shoulder to find the sun producing a visual warmth in the uppermost branches of the impossibly tall trees. Accustomed to prairies and evergreen forests, the height and sprawl of the deciduous trees here often startles me.



It would take days to walk every trail and appreciate every detail, to trace through journals of writers long dead each of their favorite spots to contemplate and write. We had a few hours, so we shed sweatshirts and enjoyed the strangely warm weather, then got back on the bus.



I found myself pensive, a little withdrawn from the company of my classmates but still happy they were there. We boarded the ferry in the chillier air coming off the sound of the Atlantic that separates Galway bay from the three Aran islands. Aran, or Innismor, is the largest and the primary tourist destination, offering the usual comforts of popular Irish areas: restaurants, "authentic" pubs, hotels and hostels. Innisoirr is the smallest, and between then is Innismeain, which translates to "middle island" in Irish (more commonly called Gaelic, but watch what you say over here!). It was too cold to stay on the deck so we retreated below and watched for the island to appear through a crest of mist. We missed it, and then we were confused as to which shore belonged to which island, but we did go up to take some pictures as we approached and docked. My impressions were specific: the contrast of gray rock and vivid grass so common in this country, a silver beach, the elevated center of the island crowned in a ring of rock wall our instructor identified as one of four pre-christian fort ruins.



Struggling with our luggage, we divided into three groups after dismounting the ferry. Aside from our class, there had been two other passengers, residents of the island who worked on the mainland. Some overturned boats were rowed on a rack at the foot of the dock, and I could see a very old unoccupied building with a sign on the wall facing us listing the distance to the nearest hotel - a joke, since the island doesn't have one. What it did have was a narrow paved road clotted in that moment by two cars testing the capacity of its width as they slowly passed one another in opposite directions, side mirrors within inches of the bordering rock walls. Houses also appeared, stucco walls in white or soft pastel, slate roofs, reliably rectangular in their architecture.



With a population of 250 people and a land area spare enough its circumference can be walked in a little more than two hours, the island has only recently emerged from pre-modernity. Some homes still have thatched roofs, literally bunches of grass positioned and then secured by a net attached to the vertical walls by pegs. Electricity was introduced in 1975 but not widely used until a decade later, and the people, like others in rural western Ireland, primarily speak Irish and are awkward in English.



The home myself and the other vegetarians were assigned was nearest the dock, overlooking the beach. We towed our luggage the short distance to its door, greeted by a friendly border collie cross of some kind (naturally I stopped to take her picture). There were bedrooms enough upstairs that we divided into pairs. Our room had one double bed my roommate was kind enough to let me have, a second twin bed, a dresser and closet and a window with a lovely view out over the island and part of the coast. Dinner was immediately, and even though our vegetarianism hadn't been disclosed before our arrival and we wound up eating plain noodles with salt in lieu of the tomato and meat sauce, it tasted great after a long day on the bus.



Instead of visiting the island's one pub, we fell asleep after showers and woke up for breakfast the next morning. Non-vegetarians had a full Irish breakfast - this includes blood sausage, regular sausage, ham and bacon - and the rest of us drank fresh hot tea, ate fresh brown bread with marmelade, with an optional bowl of rice crispies. The overcast weather of the day before had burnt off to a beautiful clear blue sky. Every islander appeared to be outdoors to enjoy the sunshine, and several of them mentioned the unusual warmth of the day. Deb, Hailey, Meg and I donned short sleeves and flip flops and rolled up our pants to wade in the gentle waves off the metallic beach. Then we napped, read or wrote alternately the rest of the morning on the warm sand. After lunch - also provided by our hostesses - we walked some trails and went to the Aran Knitwear factory, where we avoided the regularly priced cable sweaters - up to 1000 euro! - and found some good deals in the clearance bins. For a world-famous clothing store, the place was modest. We had to go to the factory entrance and ask for the store to be unlocked, since there aren't visitors enough to keep it staffed all the time.



That evening we did make it to the pub, trying not to associate too closely with our 20 plus classmates in an effort to experience the day to day ambience of the place. By the time 11 pm hit we were ready for bed, as we'd made plans to get up early enough to see the sun rise.



It was pretty cold at 5:30 am, and we wanted to get up to the apex of the island - the fort we'd seen on the ferry coming in - for the best view of the eastern sky. However, we couldn't see the signs well in the penetrating dark of the unlit island, and after a few wrong turns and dead ends, finally went near the eastern shore on a platform of rock to look out over the dock at the horizon. It wound up being a good vantage point, and the way the light interacted with the water and the silhouette of the neighboring Innismor was breathtaking. We waited until the full spectrum of pinks and blues had layered themselves before walking back for a nap before breakfast. (It's difficult, here, to convince any Irish person breakfast should be eaten before 10 am.)



We packed our things and hiked up the uninhabited northern shore, where the true island shows its face. Settlers thousands of years ago on the east coast stacked rock into intricate networks of fences, walls of barns and sheds, in an effort not only to produce necessary construction but also to expose the rock-choked soil for some degree of agricultural utilization. They still farm these patches by hand, with scythes, and only the occasional ancient Massey-Ferguson tractor barely larger than a stationwagon. Anyway, to the north traversing the landscape literally involves walking from one large rock to the next, avoiding the unstable smaller rocks that will cave under one's weight. It's worth it, though, to find the cliffshore along the northeast edge. It was slippery there with a neon-bright green moss, and a more troubled day - clouds, a stiff wind - produced pearls of waves below us. The day before had been wonderful, but finding the island today in a typical, and more characteristic mood also felt good.



Too soon, it was time to leave. The ferry rocked violently as it turned its longside against the waves in order to dock. Girls were dispensing dramamine in large numbers, but I've never been seasick, and thought I would be okay. The passage wound up being very exciting, though the ferry staff never seemed alarmed. We learned from a classmate that we were aboard the only ferry company never to have a vessel sink in an attempt to reach Innis Meain. I suppose that was meant to be reasurring. I thought of the journal we read for class, by JM Synge, author of Riders to the Sea and Playboy of the Western World. He wrote dispassionately of the island of his age, when lightweight boats composed largely of canvas were the main mode of reaching the Galway bay, and the drowning of husbands and sons was an understood element of life on the island. I could easily see how this was so, as our large, heavy modern craft was pitched carelessly about by the modest activity of the water.



Back on land, we reloaded our bus for the return trip to Cork, though almost all of us had asked to be dropped off in Galway. The city was beautiful, but I was still daydreaming about islands and all of their literal and symbolic solitude, so it took me a bit to warm up to it. We met other friends there, and some of us went out that night while others of us (me included!) recovered with a modest dinner out and familiarization with our hostel, a small 40 bed operation with naked women painted artfully on its stairwell walls.



The next day we wandered Galway and bought supplies for some hostel cooking. Meg chopped and then I sauteed a stir fry while they readied themselves for our much-anticipated Galway night out hosted by our one and only native acquaintance, Bryan, who tolerates us en masse because he's smitten with Megan. (Who can blame him? So am I!)



Anyway, while I was heating up the wok I met a beautiful couple from Israel, part of a group of four visiting Ireland for one month. He spoke excellent English and I'm pretty sure she did not; that or she wasn't interested in talking to me, though she seemed friendly. They were preparing a kosher meal for their Jewish passover, to be eaten at sunset, complete with wine and candles. Their table setting inspired me to organize a sit-down meal with my friends, and it was interesting to talk to them about their experience of Ireland and thoughts about the US presidential election.



After dinner, which was large but delicious, we went out. There were twelve of us staying in two hostels, and Bryan had only assembled four friends. I scolded him halfheartedly for this, secretly glad he hadn't managed to get together the matching number promised. On a roof in a beer garden is the prime place for a fun night out, and I was amazed as always by how much I genuinely like every girl in this enormous pack of "biddies," as we've come to call ourselves. We stayed until shooed out by management, collapsed at the hostel, and woke up at 9 am for the Cliffs of Moher tour bus the next day.



I know what I said about never getting on a tour bus again, but I do have a history of issuing second chances despite my best instincts. Anyway, this one was not so bad, although the leadup drive through the Burren en route to the Cliffs easily lost my interest. I fell asleep a few times but when we stopped in Doolin, the little city just by the Cliffs themselves, I took a walk to refresh myself while the others ate their lunch. I was ashamed to enjoy so much finally being alone. In my brief Doolin stroll I took in a tiny record store that only sold music produced in Ireland, several fair trade coffee shops, and a spot for horseback rides along the beach and minor cliffs below those of Moher. I made some mental notes and mentally planned a solo trip to this little place on the walk back. Blackberries sprung up from the roadside in such multitude I barely had to slow my step to pick them as I walked by. There's something to be said for a free lunch.



At the parking lot off the Cliffs of Moher there wasn't much to see except a disappointing abundance of fellow tourists and a walled cement walkway along the edge of the earth along which the cliffs presumably ran, but the angle was wrong to actually see anything but the point at which the grass ended and the sky began. A few cement stairs later and they came into view, as vast and breathtaking as anything can be, stretching up a colossal 700 feet from the turbulent ocean at an almost perfectly vertical incline. It was hard to hear the water, but that might have been less because of physical distance and more because of the presence of several tour bus loads of people. Even in this kind of company, barred from reaching the actual edge by the newly constructed wall, the experience was powerful.

Of course, then we climbed over the wall and went to the physical edge, but I won't write too much about that, since I expect aunts, a mother and a grandmother to read this. :)

Now I'm home - in Cork! at home in Cork! - and tired and going to my introductory English class Wednesday with nothing else to do all week except laundry and some cooking...and blog posting! Sorry about how long this one got, but there was much to say and probably more I could have said that I avoided saying precisely to prevent myself from writing a novel-length blogpost. And now my mind is exhausted; the evidence is in the previous sentence, which is grammatically convoluted, a direction this sentence seems to be heading, too. Love to all!